How about Warming to Global DDT?
We have discussed the importance of DDT and the scandal of the elites and the fashionable on this matter any number of times in this space. Today John Berlau takes up the issue in relation to the most recent Nobel Peace Prize recipient, who has been consistent in his praise for DDT’s greatest enemies:
The Nobel Committee recognized DDT’s immeasurable contribution to public health. In 1948, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Paul Hermann Müller, the Swiss chemist who discovered DDT’s effectiveness at combating the insects that spread deadly diseases. As the Nobel web site entry for Dr. Muller states, “Field trials now showed it [DDT] to be effective not only against the common housefly, but also against a wide variety of pests, including the louse, Colorado beetle, and mosquito,” The web site notes further that during World War II, DDT “proved to be of enormous value in combating typhus and malaria — malaria was, in fact, completely eradicated from many island areas.”
And after World War II, DDT eradicated malaria in vast areas of the world, including parts of the southern United States. But it was vilified in the 1962 book “Silent Spring” written by Rachel Carson, a woman Gore has called a heroine. As a result of the ensuing U.S. and worldwide near-prohibition on making DDT, several millions have died in Africa from mosquito-borne malaria that DDT could prevent.
Even after the turnabout by the World Health Organization, the New York Times and other establishment venues, Gore has never once said that Rachel Carson was wrong. As late as 1996, he called DDT a “notorious compound” that “presented serious human health risks.” The tragedy is that on this issue, Gore could have used his tremendous political capital to make a difference in reducing malaria deaths.
And Gore is still hindering anti-malaria efforts by spreading misinformation about its main causes. In his movie and book An Inconvenient Truth, Gore blames global warming for recent outbreaks of malaria in the cooler regions of Kenya. But as I have reported in my book Eco-Freaks and elsewhere, the World Health Organization had documented epidemics in those very regions in the 1940s, long before global warming was on the radar screen. The malaria was wiped out there, as elsewhere, by DDT, and unfortunately, as elsewhere, has now returned in the absence of DDT’s use. Also unfortunate is that the establishment media for the most part has not seen fit to correct Gore on this…
The WSJ noted recently: “Malaria is the number one killer of pregnant women and children in Africa and among the top killers in Asia and South America. It’s long been known that DDT is the cheapest and most effective way to contain the disease, which is spread by infected mosquitoes.”
It would be good if Mr. Gore would renounce his previous views and get on the DDT bandwagon. Unlike the the fashionable silliness of global warming, such an effort would actually fulfill the criterion set forth in Alfred Nobel’s will that the Peace Prize should help build “fraternity between the nations.” More importantly, it could be very helpful in saving lives.
October 13th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
That’s simply inaccurate. While malaria is the top killer, DDT is not the most effective way to contain the disease, and increasing DDT spraying beyond its current, measured use in limited indoor applications, will only be pouring poison on people and their food animals with no hope of benefit.
DDT cannot work alone. It is effective today only marginally due to the agricultural overuse of past years. DDT use in broadcast spraying — as you appear to be advocating, since that is the only thing banned anywhere — kills the predators of mosquitoes and in fact increases the passage of malaria (why don’t you know that?). DDT broadcast spraying also kills the farm animals and fish that Africans depend on for food.
Whose side are you on, really?
DDT is allowed for use to stop the spread of malaria, in controlled, indoor sprayings. But DDT alone quickly becomes ineffective. It can only work in conjunction with other pesticides, and in a broad program of integrated pest management that includes improving health care to cure malaria in humans (one of the best ways to stop its spread), draining mosquito breeding places around human homes, and prevention of biting by barrier prophylaxis — that is, by mosquito nets.
It would be good if you acknowledged that Al Gore gave quite a rundown of the problems of malaria in his film, and has been campaigning to fight the disease since I first met him in 1985.
Did even bother to see what Gore has said and done on the issue?
October 13th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
You might also want to get on over to the Nobel Website and read Muller’s statement about DDT. He warns it is no panacea. He warns of overuse. Your citing of Muller, contrary to what he really said, strikes me as profound cynicism, or carelessness. I hope it’s the latter.
October 20th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
The World Health Organization recently (2006) announced that it is actively backing the controversial pesticide DDT as a way to control malaria. In the early 1960s, several developing countries had nearly wiped out malaria. After they stopped using DDT, malaria came raging back and other control methods have had only modest success.
Rachel Carson has been debunked repeatedly. Most of the “conclusions” she had reached or reported were erroneous at best and deceptive at worst. She had an overactive imagination, to be kind. No doubt, she meant well, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Many of Carson’s claims were overblown. While DDT is highly toxic to insects and fish and can poison other animals in large enough doses, in moderate amounts it’s not especially harmful to birds and mammals, including humans. No one has conclusively proved that DDT can give you cancer. The cause of eggshell thinning is likewise poorly understood.
Malaria currently infects 300 to 500 million people annually, mostly in Africa, and causes as many as 2.7 million deaths. Alternative methods of mosquito control cost more and are less effective. Some 400 scientists and doctors have signed a petition opposing the inclusion of DDT among the 12 persistent organic pollutants (POPs) to be banned under a United Nations treaty now up for ratification, and a few public health experts are campaigning to bring DDT back.
DDT aside, why would anyone trust the opinion of Gore, a man who got C’s and D’s in what few science courses he took in college?
Gore is the new Rachel Carson, and his “science” is just as suspect.